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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26426098">Allies are complicated</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Io_Palladium/pseuds/Io_Palladium'>Io_Palladium</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Batfamily (DCU) Feels, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian Wayne-centric, Dick grayson is doing his best, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd is a good brother, Misunderstandings, My First Fanfic, eventually, he's ready to let himself be murdered, i guess?, it's gonna be okay, no beta we die like men, the league of assassins is fucked up</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:14:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,727</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26426098</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Io_Palladium/pseuds/Io_Palladium</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick just tries to make Damian get along with Tim for one night. It backfires spectecularily</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson &amp; Damian Wayne, Jason Todd &amp; Damian Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Damian Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Dick Grayson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>66</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>431</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Allies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I swear to god, kid. He’s not your enemy, or a threat or a mark or whatever you’ve gotten in your head. Tim is your brother!”</p><p>Damian scoffed.</p><p>Dick was so tired. Tired and sick, and frankly too young to decide how to parent a kid whose favorite pasttime was trying to murder his brother. He knew neither Tim nor Damian would listen to him if he told them to stay at the manor tonight. But there was no way he could go out like this, he admitted to himself. To be fair, Alfred threatening to cuff him to the bed if he tried to go on patrol with a temperature of 104°F and a sprained ankle had maybe also been a factor. Dick winced as he thought of Alfred’s face when he’d come home from patrol yesterday. Tim had to half carry him out of the Batmobile and by the time Alfred had bandaged his ankle Tim and Damian had each sported a couple more bruises than they ended patrol with.</p><p>He’d at least looked bad enough that Alfred refrained from scolding Dick until he’d been safe in his bed, far away from little ears who’d start screaming about family honor as soon as anyone dared to criticize Batman.</p><p>“Fine.” Dick was tempted to just close his eyes. “I know you don’t really know each other and I can’t make you see him as a brother. But can you at least try? Or treat him like a partner? Or anyone that I can let you be around of without having to worry about you killing each other?” he pleaded.</p><p>“Tt. As if <em>Drake</em> could injure me.”</p><p>“I can’t – I can’t do this tonight. Promise me that you won’t attack Tim. He’s my -”</p><p>Dick wracked his brain. How to explain to a child assassin who seems to have no concept of friends or siblings or even a team that they can’t attack someone, even if he’s not a civilian?</p><p>“-my ally. Okay?”</p><p> Dick was so relieved to hear Damian answer in the affirmative, he didn’t realizes how much the boy had blanched as he said those words or that the kids retreat to his room had been rather hasty.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>-is Damian al Ghul. My ally.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The man at Ras’s al Ghul’s feet gibbered: “I didn’t know! Please, spare me! I swear, this will never happen again. I didn’t mean to attack him!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ra’s raised an eyebrow. “Attack? You thought you could be a threat to an al Ghul?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Damian was already bored. This always ended the same way. Grandfather just want to show the rest of the members of the league once more what happened to those who disobeyed him. He sniffed disdainfully. How someone could be stupid enough to first attack an ally of Ra’s al Ghul and then feign ignorance was beyond him. If he had been ignorant enough to make such a grave mistake at least he would receive his sentence with honor instead of dying begging like a coward. “Damian?” Ra’s al Ghul nodded at him shortly and left the room. He’d more pressing business to attend to than witnessing an execution. The guards turned the man around and forced him on his knees. Damian sighed and unsheathed his sword.</em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  
</p><p>Damian paced around his room. Obviously he’d … miscalculated the relationship between Drake and Grayson. Badly. Maybe he could apologize to Drake and-. Damian hated himself for the thought immediately. This wasn’t one of the stupid children’s cartoon Todd had made him watch. This was real life, and an insult this grave couldn’t be fixed with an apology and -what was it the bear had brought with him? Chocolate muffins. Damian snorted grimly.</p><p>In real life you had a responsibility. A duty. And if even everything else was lost, at least you still had your honor. Besides, Grayson had made his expectations very clear. Tonight. He could have at least invented a better excuse for not being there: as if Batman would get sick. Damian scoffed. But, well Batman had a reputation to uphold. Grayson had already explained to him a hundred times that it would not do for Robin to be seen maiming criminals. A disgraced Robin would probably fall under the same category.</p><p>When Damian went down to the cave he thought for a second about whether it was still appropriate for him to wear the Robin uniform. It would probably be easier to make it look like an accident if he was still wearing it.</p><p>Also, the shrine Grayson had ushered him away from the first time he was in the cave proved that the second Robin had died in it too. They would probably take precautions this time, to make sure he wasn’t coming back. Damian shivered involuntarily. The League had taught him that there were a lot of … unpleasant ways to make sure the dead stayed dead. Ra’s had enjoyed to make it last, sometimes. Damian himself had been ordered to punish traitors who’d tried to kill him, but...</p><p>He had made it quick at least, when Ra’s wasn’t there. He could only hope Drake would do the same.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Duty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for the nice comments!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tim Drake was sitting in the kitchen, and tried to make the time pass slower by drinking a giant cup of coffee. When it was clear that Dick was too sick to go on patrol, Tim had seriously thought about staying home too. He could do with a night with less assassination attempts “And more sleep”, he could almost hear Alfred say disapprovingly. Whatever. (Not that he’d say that to Alfreds face.) Still, patrol with Damian would suck. At least Damian had stopped his outright murder attempts while Dick was around. But even getting assaulted by a ten year old got less and less funny after a while. (After the first time he broke a bone, to be exact.)</p><p>Tim took another sip of coffee. He’d be damned before he hid in the manor to escape a child though. Also, he had to make sure the kid wouldn’t maim any criminals. Dick had done a pretty good job of convincing him to leave “bruises, not breaks” but he was still a little heavy handed, when he was overwhelmed. And thirdly… Dick really knew how to pull out all of the stops, didn’t he? Getting raised by a twenty year old who was not immune to puppy eyes privilege, Tim grumbled internally. Lying in his bed, looking uncharacteristically small, his cheeks red with fever, and then having the gall to tell him he <em>trusted</em> Tim and that he <em>knew </em>it was a lot to ask and that Damian was complicated but he was still a child, and sometimes patrol could take a nasty turn, and he would really feel a lot better if Tim were by his side in case anything went wrong… And then he had just looked at him imploringly with those big, liquid eyes.</p><p>And of course, instead of telling him to ground his damn kid, Tim had folded like a wet piece of paper and promised him that <em>of course</em> he’d take care of Damian and make sure he got him back safe and sound. And he had believed himself too!</p><p>That resolution had wavered quite a bit since then. Still, there was no more avoiding it: It was time to go down to the cave. When he didn’t receive a batarang to the head first thing, he put his chances of actually succeeding on his mission of not letting Damian get hurt while also surving the night himself at “cautiously optimistic”.</p><p>As they prepared for patrol, Tim became more and more suspicious. The lack of batarang throwing could be put down to the kid just being busy, but this? Damian hadn’t checked his weapons every time Tim had been in a 10 foot radius around them, he hadn’t made vague threats or insulted his family. Was this some kind of ploy to confuse him? Tim rechecked all his weapons himself, but couldn’t find anything unusual. “Robin, let’s go.” he said and swallowed the rest of his coffee in one go. He winced. Why had he said it like this?? Everyone knew Damian would take orders from Dick without complaint and listen to Alfreds strongly worded “hints” immediatly, but he chafed under even the mildest suggestion if it was coming from Tim.</p><p>Tim turned around, half expecting the brat to jump him here and now.</p><p>But when he did turn, Damian was sitting quietly in the Batmobile, head against the window, and Tim suddendly felt like an ass. The kid was listening to him, and showing him at least a minumum of trust, and the first thing Tim had expected was a knife to the back.</p><p>Dick had told him again and again, that Damian was a child, that he had been forced to kill most people he’d grown close to and that him trying to sabotage Tim again and again wasn’t <em>personal,</em> it was what he’d been taught to do, to keep himself <em>safe</em>. When Tim had argued that Damian never tried to poison Dicks sandwiches and seemed to trust Dick around his weapons, Dick had blown up.</p><p>“This isn’t trust, Tim!” Dick had yelled. “He doesn’t listen to me because he thinks I won’t let him get hurt, he listens to me because he thinks getting hurt is preferable to what I’d do to him if he disobeyed!”</p><p>Dick had stomped off, and when Tim had looked for him later, he found him crying in Bruces room. Tim had closed the door softly, and had tried to be especially nice to Damian over dinner. He knew Dick struggled: Losing Bruce and having to become Batman was hard enough without trying to keep the family from falling apart and raising a child. Bruce hadn’t been the best father, he’d been young and had no idea what to do with a child, but he’d felt responsible for Dick, and had been there for him.</p><p>All of them were so used to Dick always being around, always optimistic and with a plan that it was sometimes hard to remember that he was younger than Bruce had been then and felt his responsibilities even more. He’d taken Batman, taken care of Damian, kept Tim from imploding when he couldn’t find a way to bring Bruce back and convinced Jason to take a “mental health break” from Red Hood.</p><p>Tim knew Damian wasn’t his responsibility, but it’s not as if Dick had signed up for a murder baby. And now that Tim was around and doing okay, he could hardly blame Dick for asking him to help out.</p><p>Damian was quiet during the ride. He stared outside into the rainy night and only humoured Tims awkward attempts at conversation with monosyllabic answers. Tim chose to take that as a good sign. It was probably weird for the kid too, being expected to be semi-friendly to someone he had been encouraged to kill, before. Or maybe Dick had bawled him out before patrol? Or was Damian worried about him? “Don’t worry”, he said carefully. “You know that Batman is going to be okay, right?” “Of course, Drake”, Damian hissed, sounding a bit more back to normal. “Batman could never be brought down by a trifle like this!”  “Okay, okay” Tim would have held up his hands if he hadn’t needed them to drive. “Just wanted to make sure.” “Hm.” Damian grunted.</p><p>Patrol went <em>very</em> well. Damian had stopped watching every single one of Tims moves and Tim too had watched out more for their attackers than making sure to not give Damian an opening, which made for a much more pleasant all around experience. Not that Tim hadn’t known the kid was good, but it was still very different to properly fight together. Damian even followed his orders – more or less. He had almost given Tim a heart attack when he jumped to attack some thugs while Tim was throwing batarangs in the same direction. Luckily Tim was a very good shot, and hadn’t even scratched Damian. He had still yelled a little at the kid out of shock. He’d felt bad about it pretty quickly and gotten the two of them cheeseburgers as an apology. Well, he hadn’t really expected Damian to take one. In the month that Damian had been with them, he had refused any food that had been even near Tim for any amount of time. But still, the way this night was going, Damian wouldn’t take it the wrong way, right? To Tims surprise, Damian ate the burger without hesitation or comment.</p><p>They were standing on the roof of one of Gothams many crumbling warehouses, Tim idly watching the street below them. Earlier Damian had been walking around a little close to the edge of the roof, while shooting him suspicious looks, but he wasn’t going to be goaded into asking Damian to step away from the ledge just to start a  fight. Dick was the careful one: Tim trusted Damian to shoot a grapple line fast enough, even if he did fall over the ledge. Tim checked his watch: It was half past three, and the night had been relativly calm, at least for Gothams standarts. He was just about to tell Damian that they could do one more round and then go home, when Damian looked at him, very deliberatly took two steps back and turned around.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Damian ground his teeth. He’d tried everything: He had not double checked his weapons, he had stopped paying attention to where Drake was in the fight. He’d even eaten the food Drake had offered to share with him. And still – nothing. What was he waiting for? Damian had given him the opportunity to make it look like an accident and jumped in the middle of a fight while Drake was throwing Batarangs.</p><p>Couldn’t Drake make this easy for him? Damian swallowed. It wasn’t right to think to think that way, he reminded himself. He should be glad Batman wasn’t dealing with this personally. Still, Drake hadn’t seemed to understand, even when he had stood right next to the edge of the roof. He had just made an offhand comment about how he was sure Damian could catch himself. Of course he <em>could</em>. But he wouldn’t. Did Drake truly think him so pathetic that he would disobey when Grayson had made very clear what was expected from him? To just run away, thinking he could escape the wrath of the Batman would not only make him a coward, but also a fool.</p><p>So what did he want him to do? The Batman was traditional, he reasoned. Maybe they weren’t for this kind of subleties. Fine. <em>Fine.</em> He could do this the traditional way too. Damian got up, looked at Drake and turned around. He could hear his heart beat too quickly in his ears. “This isn’t different than earlier”, he told himself. ”I turned my back to him when we were fighting too.” Still, just <em>standing</em> there without being able to see or react went against all his training and he only barely managed to hold still. “Damian?” Drake said carefully (behind him) (don’t turn around DON’T flinch) “What are you doing?”</p><p>Damian felt like he was going to throw up. Or maybe do something even worse. He was the son of Batman and Talia al Ghul. He was <strong>not</strong> going to cry. He could do this. Besides, Drake was well within his rights to demand a clearer demonstration. After all, he hadn’t attacked him once, he had tried to kill him multiple times. Even after Grayson had explicitly told him not to. He had been so <em>stupid</em>.</p><p>Damian clenched his fists and went to his knees.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Then he bent his neck and Tim almost threw up on the spot. He hadn’t spent a long time with Ra’s al Ghul, but the man had forced him to attend enough of his “audiences” to know what that specific gesture meant. “No”, he said with undisguised horror. He grabbed the child by the shoulder and pulled him back up. “Damian, no! I’m not going to hurt you! Where is this coming from?” The empty look in the kids eyes gave way to blind panic, and before Tim could figure out what to say or to do now, Damian shoved Tim as hard as he could and tore away into the night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Brothers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for all the nice comments guys!! It really means a lot to me and I'm sorry the last chapter took so long. It's the middle of the night for me now, so I will finish edit this in the morning.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At 3am in the morning, Jason Peter Todd was sleeping the sleep of the just. After a couple of longing gazes towards his costume he’d sighed and gone to bed at only midnight.</p>
<p>After he had stopped patrolling, it had taken some time for his circadian rhythm to get the memo and the first couple of nights he’d ended up taking a walk outside anyways. It was strange how your body could get used to anything “even a cape around the neck.” Jason thought sarcastically. The rush of adrenaline that came with every noise in the night was practical for a vigilante – less practical for someone walking around in the best lit part off Gotham, trying to stave off a panic attack. These first days without being Red Hood, without being a vigilate at all had sucked majorly. Dick had got him to promise to give up Red Hood “- at least for a while, please, Jay. Bruce is gone, and I know this isn’t what you wanted your future to be like.” and for a moment Jason had seen himself through Dicks eyes, 15 again, and dreaming about college. He’d swallowed and agreed and signed up for college classes the same night.</p>
<p>But becoming a civilian hadn’t all been sunshine and rainbows. He hadn’t fallen in with any groups in college: The first week, Jason had been mainly exhausted. He couldn’t sleep at night and found no way to work off his adrenaline. His mixture of falling asleep in classes and flinching at every noise had probably made a less than stellar impression on his classmates and his professors. High school had been years past, and he found himself struggling with the material even in the introductury classes. After the second week he was ready to quit.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, it had been Damian who had convinced him to give it another try. When Jason had shown up at the Manor on Saturday for their weekly scheduled “teaching your brother about ethics”, as Dick called it, “Assassins Anonymous” as Tim called it “torture” as Damian called it, or “great fun” as Jason called it, Damian had sat on the couch already, semi-resigned to “whatever stupidity Todd would subject him to this time”.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>--2 months ago--</p>
<p>Jason crashed the kitchen in the search for popcorn and then dive rolled over the back of the couch in a clear imitation of Dick. When he managed it without spilling any of the popcorn, he grinned widely while shoving a handfull of said popcorn into his mouth. “Tt. Are these dramatics really necessary, Todd?” Damian complained. “Yep!” Jason said cheerfully with his mouth full. “Just as necessary as watching todays episode of…”  Jason paused for added suspense. “Sesame Street!” “Even if I needed to learn about what Americans call popular entertainment, this is clearly below my intellectual capacities. I do not understand why you and Grayson insist on this. I should be occupying my time with more important things.” Damian complained. Jason smiled sweetly. “It’s this or Paw Patrol.” he threatened. “Fine”, Damian huffed and slumped back on the sofa. Jason was sure this was mostly posturing though. While Damian was wary of Tim and uncomfortable and stiff around Dick, for some reason he was more relaxed alone with Jason. And while Jason had no idea why, he sure wasn’t going to COMPLAIN about the lack of stabbing. Also, riling up te kid was more fun when he would react to it as if Jason had challenged him to an Agni Kai. Hm…That was a though… Jason took out his phone and added the point</p>
<p>-watch atla, mby comparison fire nation -al-ghuls??? (honor&amp;child abuse)</p>
<p>to the list titled “Demon brat playdate ideas xoxo (Dearest Replacement, edit this one more time and I will empty all your stashes and send Alfred and Dick daily articles of how dangerous caffeine is for adolescents.)”</p>
<p>Jason contemplated adding another threat when he saw something flying towards him in his peripheral vision. He threw himself to the side on instinct. “Hey!” he complained as he chucked the pillow back towards Damian half-heartedly. “What was that for?” “You said I wasn’t allowed to look at my phone, so politeness dictates you should show me the same curtesy.” Damian said “Aww.” Jason grinned. “Are the Care Bear lessons about the golden rule paying off?” He dodged another pillow. “I don’t see how the inanity of a giant yellow bird can possibly instill any kind of values or life skills in children. This program is nonsensical.”</p>
<p>“How dare you!” Jason said in mock outrage. “Big Bird is a national treasure!”</p>
<p>Damian huffed. “But for real, the history of Sesame Street is actually pretty fascinating.” Jason got comfortable on the sofa again and put his feet on Damians legs, who shoved them off immediately. “Sesame Street isn’t just a fun show for kids, it was written as a way to cheaply and easily reach poor children and close the gap between them and rich kids in pre-k. It’s supposed to look kind of like where they live, with rowhouse apartments and dumpsters on the pavement and stuff like that. The point is to each them the alphabet and how stuff gets made as well as basic life skills and things like self-control and how to deal with being angry or sad. It might look dumb, but there was a lot of thought involved and they had multiple psychologists consult on the show. They even did a special episode for Gotham on how to act when Scarcrow bombs half the city with feargas again. Oscar the Grouch was wearing a batmask. It was hilarious.” Jason laughed. “He really did sound like him too! When that episode aired, all the little kids on my block were practicing breathing exercises and how to calm each other down for weeks. Point being, it worked.” Jason rubbed his neck, suddendly a little self-concious. “Our professor in ‘Introduction to Educational Outreach’ is really into that kind of stuff. He talked about it for the entire lesson last week.”</p>
<p>“I wished I could go to college. It certainly seems more suited to my interests than “Damian wrinkled his nose “middle school.” “Well,” Jason reached out to ruffle Damians hair but held up his hands when Damian glared at him. “Dickie-bird just wants you to socialize with kids your own age. College is pretty cool though. I bet Dick would let you take a couple of classes if you asked.” he added carefully. “I will not bother him with this kind of trivial nonsense!” Damain sat up, stiff as a board. Oh shit “Dick won’t- “ Jason tried. “And don’t adress Batman like that!” Damian yelled and stormed off.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Even though that day had ended pretty terribly with Damian sulking in his room and Jason awkwardly seeing himself out, he’d thought that if even the demon brat thought college was fun when he talked about it, he couldn’t be doing so terribly. So he switched a couple classes, asked his professor if he could do his term paper about Sesame Street and made an effort to join some clubs. And he was now sucessfully sleeping at 3am like a normal person.</p>
<p>Peacefully sleeping, which was very rudely interrupted when his doorbell rang. Well, rang was not exactly the right word. The fancy schmancy appartment Tim had organized for him came with a customizable doorbell and even though Jason personally would have been absolutly fine with a classical “ding dong” or a vibration, Tim thought it was hilarious to change it whenever he felt like it and Jason could NOT figure out how lock him out. Seriously he’d tried everything. He’d even asked Alfred who had very politely, very britishly said what about amounted to “Talk shit, get hit”. So, he muffled a scream in his pillow when at fucking three in the morning BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM I WANT YOU IN MY ROOM, LET’S SPEND THE DAY TOGETHER FROM NOW UNTIL FOREVER was played as someone rang at the door.</p>
<p>He stumbled out of bed, through the kitchen and opened the door. Damian standing there was perhaps not the most unlikely person but Jason still rubbed his eyes when he saw the brat standing there, white as a sheet, in full robin uniform.</p>
<p>He’d never been with the brat on patrol, but according to everything he had seen at the Manor and everything he had heard Dick say, the brat tried to keep every kind of emotion besides anger under wraps, but especially fear. No wonder. Jasons memories of his time with the Al-Ghuls are muddy, pit madness blurring everything, but it’s not so easy to forget their general attitude towards <em>weakness</em>.</p>
<p>And still here Damian was, looking like he was about to keel over at any moment. Fear gas? Probably not. Jason realized he’d been staring at the kid for seconds, while Damian was just standing there shaking slightly. “Damian, what’s going on?” He led the kid inside and pushed him to sit on the couch. What the hell had happened here? “Damian, you’re scaring me, kid. Did something go wrong on patrol?” Damian didn’t reply. Jason was freaking out here. Sure he’d dealt with feargassed civilians, but that had beeen years ago, as Robin, with Batman, instead of all alone, in his pajamas, at three in the morning. This situation clearly called for Dick, for his unflinshing optimism and general good emotional descision making. “Okay, I’m calling Dick.” “No!” Damian grabbed his arm desperatly, his finger cold as ice. “He can’t know!” “Can’t know what, Damian?” Jason suddendly had a terrible thought. “Did something happen to Tim?”</p>
<p>The kid was bloodthirsty, but… Not that bloodthirsty, right? Right? Jason wanted to hit himself for even thinking that. Of course Damian wouldn’t do something like that. And if he had murdered Tim in cold blood, he’d hardly come running to Jason looking like that, fucking would he? An accident then, on patrol? Shit, the kid was only, what, fifteen? “As old as you were” a traitorous voice in his brain whispered. Too fucking young to- “No, nothing’s wrong with Drake i- it’s me I’ve” Damian choked. “Okay. okay.” Jason needed to sit down himself for a second. Everyone was okay. Dick was okay. Tim was okay. He was okay. Damian was … maybe not okay right now, but alive and here. “Okay. You can just sit here and I’m going to make some hot chocolate and then we will figure this out together.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>Tim couldn’t stop replaying every single detail of the evening in his head.</p>
<p>The drive to the manor had taken long enough, even at full speed, for Tim to have enough time to see the night in a very different light. He had to pull over and throw up then.</p>
<p>Bringing Damian back safe and sound: Great job, Tim! That’s exactly what Dick had in mind for the one night he has taken off in months because he literally could not stand up: First psychological terror and then losing him in Gotham, in the middle of the night while he’s having a panic attack.</p>
<p>Tim put the pedal to the metal. Dick would be able to fix this, wouldn’t he?</p>
<hr/>
<p>“Wait wait wait. rewind, kid. -you thought Batman murdered me???” “It was the logical conclusion.” Damian said primly. “It was?” Jason asked. “Yes. Your performance as Robin was not satisfactory so Drake replaced you. That’s why you call him replacement.”</p>
<p>“Okay. Wow. That is uh. Very much not what happened. The Joker murdered me or I guess..No, let’s make this short The Joker tried to tricked me, Batman said “Hey Jase, this is totally a trap, do not fall for it”, I fell for it, I ran away and the Joker beat me to death. The End.” Jason swallowed. “Or I guess… Bruce gets depressed. Tim saves him from himself, I get out of my tomb, Talia chucks me in the Pit. I go insane, I try to murder Bruce, I try to murder Tim. I get my shit together, I stop murdering people and I still call Tim replacement because I’m a total douche.”</p>
<p>“So you thought Tim was going to murder you, and you what, just went with him anyways?” Jason asked. “Honor demands- “ Jason tried really hard to supress the mental image of Damian with a shaved head and a ponytail. It would probably be super unhelpful to start hysterically giggling now. “Fuck honor, don’t you have any self-preservation instinct?” Jason ran a hand over his face. “Oh right, that’s what you used when you tried to kill Tim about three times a day.”</p>
<p>“Not kill.” Damian protested. “Just maim a little.” Jason groaned. “I just needed to make him leave, or at least prove to Batman that I-“ “am the superior Robin so he wouldn’t fucking murder me.” Jason completed the sentence and resisted the temptation to knock his head against the table.</p>
<p>“So why else? Why was Drake being so nice? Why even take me as Robin at all if you and Drake could have just as well done it?</p>
<p>“They wuv you.” Jason said with an absolutly straight face and didn’t even try to dodge the pillow flying towards his face.</p>
<p>“Tt.”</p>
<p>“But for real”, Jason insisted. “You’re not Robin because Tim and I blow and Dick needed someone to replace us. Not that you aren’t a very capable murderbaby in your own right-“ Jason held up his hands as Damian glared at him. “You get to be Robin because it’s important to you, and because Dick wants to spend time with you, and because he wants you to have a shot at what he had with Bruce. A childhood. A pretty weird fucking childhood if you ask me, but still a happy childhood.”</p>
<p>“And Tim cares about you too, even though you keep trying to murder him, which in all honestly you should probably stop doing. Also you’re making Dick go gray before his time, the poor guy is only 24!”</p>
<p>That got something like a smile out of Damian.</p>
<p>“Speaking of Dick. Since we’ve established that he was probably not faking an illness so Tim can go murder you, he’s probably actually sick and if Tim hasn’t called in the cavalary to help scour the city for his runaway 10 year old, I’ll eat my hood. So Tim should be at the Manor right about” Jason checked his phone “now, and if Dick finds out I’ve been hiding you here he’s going to tear off my head” he narrowed his eyes “not literally, mind you, but still, so can I please text him now?”</p>
<p> “Alright.” Damian said quietly.</p>
<p>While Jason was composing a text messsage that would somehow explain all of this without giving Dick a heart attack he walked to the counter and took out his medication. 4am counted as morning, right? Whatever. “Grayson says you shouldn’t take them dry.” a small voice said from the couch. “Oh, so on this you listen to him?” Jason griped. Still he grabbed a glass of water. And groaned when he checked his phone again. “Yep, no such luck. The Bats are on the way.” When he turned around, Damian had blanched again and was twisting the blanket that Jason had somehow managed to put on him earlier. Shock. A hell of a drug. Jason shook his head wisely.</p>
<p>He let himself fall on the couch. “Come on, spit it out.” he coaxed. “It’s just” Damian said hesitatingly. “Are you sure?” “Look,” Jason said. “if you’re right, and this has been an extremly weird long game and Tim was about to murder you and then for some reason didn’t and seemed very horrified by the prospect” he raised an eyebrow “then those two are about to come in here and murder us and I will be very sorry for being wrong and you can die happily knowing you were right. But, if I was right, Dick will burst through that door and hug you half to death, but ONLY half, while I get to stand next to it and look very smug. And then you can believe me that they care about you a bunch and you don’t have to murder anyone or ‘not show weakness’ in order to not get hurt or, ya know, murdered.” He looked Damian in the eyes. “Even if you had seriously hurt Tim, Dick wouldn’t kill you or have you killed. But still cut that shit out, okay? I don’t wanna hear Dick coming to me because you said ‘But Todd stated there would be no negative consequences if I poison Timmy!’.“ Jason said in a frankly mean-spirited imitation of Damians voice. “I don’t call him Timmy.” Damian corrected half-heartedly. “And that’s another thing. Don’t go around calling him Drake anymore, okay? His parents suck, so we’ve adopted him, just like Dick adopted you, and we don’t go calling you al-Ghul either.” Jason lectured. “ I guess.” Wow, this pliant Damian was really freaking Jason out. He could not wait for this night to be over.</p>
<p>It seemed like someone was listening tonight, because in that very moment, Jason heard the unmistakable sound of someone going up the stairs. Wishing to spare them another round of Boom boom boom he open the door immediately and found himself with an armful of Dick. “Mmpf” he said intelligently. Before he could recover, Dick had already darted past him and was, just as Jason had predicted, smothering the brat in a hug. True to his promise, Jason smiled very smugly. Then he looked at the second person who was standing in his doorway. Tim was looking almost as bad as Damian had earlier, pale, and eyes bloodshot from crying. “No chickening out now, Jase.” He told himself and enveloped his brother into a hug. He allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment. “I’m so glad you’re okay”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is my first fanfiction, so please be nice! If you liked this chapter please leave kudos or comment!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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